The doors to Forging Room No. 2, which had been shut for a day and a night, opened from within.
The attendant delivering lunch stood there dumbfounded, because this was the first time in over a month that she had seen the occupant who had monopolized this forging room...
And he was actually just a teenager?
Long Zijin walked out and into the corridor on the nineteenth floor.
This was the first time in thirty-two days that he had felt the cool caress of the outside air.
The Flower Immortal Body possessed exceptionally strong resistance, and with his Amethyst Dragon Martial Soul, more than a month of high-temperature, high-intensity work had been nothing to him.
But the flames produced by the Fire Dragon King Crown were, after all, extraordinary. Long Zijin still felt his skin growing dry, and his mental state was less than ideal.
So, he simply submitted a request to visit the floor where a water-element Titled Douluo resided and take a soak through mimetic cultivation.
It was just as Long Zijin was eating high-grade food to replenish the Flower Immortal Body's expenditure.
The red-level elevator arrived with a ding. A red-haired, red-eyed woman emerged from the elevator lobby, followed by a man.
The woman in front wore the fitted black uniform reserved for deputy pagoda masters. She was naturally the Heavenly Phoenix Douluo, Leng Yaozhu.
The man following behind her wore a loose moon-white robe, the highest rank within the Spirit Pagoda's uniform system.
Looking closely at this middle-aged man, his features and bone structure were sharply defined, his youthful handsomeness not diminished in the slightest. As he strode forward, he carried the authority of a superior and the concealed might of overwhelming strength.
"Wow, that smells wonderful." Leng Yaozhu approached and could not help praising it.
Unlike the usual impression of a forging room steeped in sweat and sour odors, a faint, elegant fragrance drifted from Room No. 2, where Long Zijin had stayed for over a month.
It felt less like a forging room full of heat and sweat than a flower garden built atop a rooftop.
Even the burly man in white raised his thick brows.
Long Zijin set down his golden spoon and said with a smile, "This is the special constitution I mentioned before."
His gaze passed over Leng Yaozhu, and he raised his chin. "Sister Yaozhu, aren't you going to introduce him?"
Hearing him call her "Sister Yaozhu," the burly man in white was visibly taken aback and began carefully examining the purple-haired youth at close range.
Leng Yaozhu shifted aside and said exactly what the Dragon Emperor had expected. "This is the head of our Spirit Pagoda, the Spirit Douluo."
"My name is Qiangu Dongfeng." A rare smile appeared on the man's stern face.
It was the goodwill he offered to the pleasing person before him.
"I heard Yaozhu mention that she had recruited a promising talent with a super Martial Soul for our Spirit Pagoda. Over the past month, I have often considered coming here to pay a visit, but I never found a suitable opportunity."
"But today, I have finally met you."
Long Zijin nodded slightly. "Pagoda Master Qiangu, you flatter me."
At that moment, Leng Yaozhu suddenly interjected, "Zijin, the Crystal Blood Dragon Ginseng has been found."
"Oh?" Long Zijin's eyes lit up. "Where is it?"
But Leng Yaozhu's smile was somewhat forced as she gestured toward the person beside her. "It is in Pagoda Master Qiangu's hands."
Qiangu Dongfeng stepped forward. A faint glow flashed from his Soul Tool, and a jade box the size of two palms appeared atop his right hand.
In that instant, Long Zijin felt the Flower Immortal Body stir restlessly. Through the jade box, the desire originating from his very essence made his face flush slightly.
Holding the jade box, Qiangu Dongfeng explained, "This item is one of the treasures in the Qiangu Family treasury. I can give it to you in my personal capacity, little brother, but I have one small request..."
He swept his gaze around before saying, "I would like to make the acquaintance of the Brother Di Yaozhu mentioned..."
"I wonder whether little Brother Long could make that convenient?"
Long Zijin raised a brow. Make his acquaintance?
More like recruit him.
Councilor Xu was one of the Spirit Pagoda's thirty-six upper echelons, and through the Xu Family's ten-thousand-year genetic memories, Long Zijin knew very well just how ambitious and unscrupulous this Spirit Douluo was.
But then again...
"No problem." Long Zijin snapped his fingers lightly. A wisp of the Will of Destruction pierced through space and vanished beyond the glass corridor to his right.
The next instant—
Leng Yaozhu and Qiangu Dongfeng both whirled toward their left, alarm bells ringing in their minds.
A humanoid streak of light broke through layer after layer of high-altitude air currents, passed directly through the transparent crystal wall of the nineteenth floor, and flashed to Long Zijin's side. He bent slightly and said in dragon language, "My Emperor, congratulations on leaving seclusion."
"Here. Don't lose it again." Long Zijin casually handed over the new Dragon-Slaying Blade.
Then he gestured toward the side. "Also, Pagoda Master Qiangu wants to see what you can do."
"Thank you for Your Majesty's gift!" Di Guangming caught the new Dragon-Slaying Blade in one swift motion.
Since the spirit within the blade now carried the Dragon Emperor's will, it would no longer damage the Holy Dragon King's Life Gold body as it had when it was still a blade blank.
Di Guangming gripped the hilt with his right hand and gently stroked the blade with his left, his eyes brimming with reluctance to let it go.
The next moment, his platinum dragon eyes sharpened. The blade pointed skyward, and an aura of man and blade as one surged straight toward the dome, as if it intended to cleave through the crystal ceiling of the nineteenth floor!
Forced back by that terrifying radiance, Leng Yaozhu retreated again and again.
Even Qiangu Dongfeng widened his eyes, his face full of wariness.
"Besides possessing dual ultimate attributes, he is actually a master of the blade?" Leng Yaozhu's worldview was beginning to crumble.
So during their last exchange, he had not used his full strength at all. He had defeated her after only half a move.
Then how terrifying was his true strength...?
Qiangu Dongfeng had completely lost the leisurely composure he had possessed when he first stepped out of the elevator.
The moment Di Guangming appeared and instantly passed through the ninth-grade Soul Tool crystal wall, Qiangu Dongfeng had concluded that he was a movement expert, an agility-attack Limit Douluo.
Yet that assessment did not match Leng Yaozhu's description of "dragon claws," "dual ultimate attributes," and the impression of a power-attack fighter.
Only now, when the other party raised a crystal blade that did not even qualify as a Soul Tool, did he unleash a sharpness that made Qiangu Dongfeng's heart tremble.
Only at this moment did Qiangu Dongfeng dare conclude that the other party was absolutely a Quasi-God with both power and agility attack capabilities!
That was right—not a Limit Douluo, nor a Demigod Rank powerhouse.
But a Quasi-God-level great expert!
Because he had only felt such sky-piercing sharpness and terrifying might once before, from afar, when Yun Ming unleashed the Atlas Spear Intent and crushed Qiangu Dieting with unstoppable force.
That meant the white-clad, golden-haired man before him was very likely an unparalleled figure capable of rivaling humanity's strongest Quasi-God, Yun Ming.
Qiangu Dongfeng seemed to recall something and turned his gaze toward Long Zijin.
"If a Quasi-God is merely a respectful personal attendant, then within this reclusive Dragon Martial Soul family, could there be at least one..."
"A true god?!"
At that thought, Qiangu Dongfeng swallowed hard.
Just then, a pair of platinum eyes blazed toward him like the gaze of a dragon looking down from above, startling Qiangu Dongfeng into alertness!
He hurriedly put away his pagoda master's airs and asked with an awkward smile, "May I ask this brother whether you could reveal your name or title?"
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